Pig's Manju
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AU] He would never finish his thousand cranes – and he didn't think his wish was strong enough to drive him to. But there was something else he could do with that paper, something that would last longer than the origami his fatigued fingers could make…


**A/N:** The title is the Japanese colloquial name for the Cyclamen flower, which symbolises resignation and farewell. It's also got an interesting role in pregnancy; it can kill the fetus in the early stages but speeds up labour in the later stages. It's got a few other interesting properties too, like apparently it can assist against cataracts (I wonder if that really works) and sunburn, and counteracts poison as well.

BTW, if you can't guess who's narrating, the name will be mentioned in chapter 1. I think there's something glaringly obvious that should distinguish between the two possible candidates though.

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**Pigs' Manju  
Prologue**

The majority of people are lucky they are able to go through life without pre-empting their death. That's not to say of course it doesn't occur to the average person on occasion, or they don't take a moment in their lives to contemplate the imminent. But for them, it's something remote.

Only for very few people is death a dangling carrot in front of their face.

No, perhaps that's a bad analogy. A donkey would chase after the carrot, just as a dog would chase after their own tail. No…it's more waiting for something you know is around the corner – no, that's no good either. That implies there are other paths to take. A river I suppose would be best; they flow one way. Like the flow of life. Maybe it's flowing towards a waterfall, or the Sanzu river and its fateful crossing.

The point is, only few people go through life knowing they'll die within the next three years, or sooner. Beyond that is apparently beyond the comprehension of the human mind; people are often asked, at school, university or work, where they expect to be in ten years, and most cannot come up with a definite and unambiguous answer.

Out of these people, cancer is the most common cause.

Sure, the doctors are often wrong, but it changes little, if anything at all. For even if one survives weeks, or even years, beyond what they are expected to, the burden hanging over their heads is a very difficult thing to bear. Sometimes, it's the wait that kills faster than the disease.

And I should know. I am one of those people.

It started with a common cold, of which I've suffered many in my lifetime. It seems I come down with one every three months at the least, but this one developed into pneumonia and became bad enough for my mother to insist on a visit to the doctor.

It took a few weeks to get over the pneumonia, and in the meantime the tests ran at the hospital brought up other matters of concern. True, they used the medical terms; perhaps they're simply used to it in their field of work or maybe it's something they do on purpose, thinking eight patients out of ten will fail to understand their meaning. But my mother works at the same hospital, and while she is not a doctor, nor a nurse – rather, she works in the research department – she is well familiar with many a medical term, and as such I picked up quite a bit from her.

And what I didn't know, I quickly learnt.

Tests were initially done because of the infection; they were simply physical observation, a chest X-ray…and a blood test.

It was the blood test that picked up the higher than usual white blood cell count. Of course, the doctors called them leucocytes, but I know enough to know they are the same thing. What I didn't know at that point in time is that was a sign of leukaemia, though with the similarities in nomenclature it really should have occurred to me at some point, if not at that point. It was also apparent in that blood count that the level of other cells and chemicals in my blood was low as a result of the overabundance.

If I had been mistaken before, that knowledge cleared the issue up. While having more white blood cells may seem like a good thing, it's not. Their function does not improve; they do not defend from more illnesses. The opposite rather; they are incapable of fighting the pathogens that a person with a normal immune system would be asymptomatic for. I hadn't known the reason, but I did know it couldn't have been a good thing, for why would I suffer from so many colds otherwise? If anything, I should have less than the average person, not more, if my white blood cells were overabundant.

It was more of a problem that other things were low: red blood cells for instance. Less haemoglobin to carry oxygen. Less iron as well, which leads to anaemia. And low platelets, so small wounds can result in losing quite a bit of blood, due to the lower concentration of clotting factors. There's more as well, but I can't remember right now. These I remember, because I'm feeling their effects now. A simple paper cut bleeding like I've cut half my finger off. I've had to call the nurse, so I'll have to stop writing soon. It's hard enough to hold a pen, but now I'm starting to feel dizzy again…

But I should say this now.

I was born fourteen years on that day, when I was first diagnosed. And on that same day, June 23 2007, I found out that I would most likely die within seven and a half months. And today is the last of those days: the seventh of February of the following year.

And I'm alive. For now.


End file.
